Even when one of the big five comes out with a top rate — as has happened on the odd, rare occasion — I’m sceptical about how many people can actually get it.

For example, Santander offered a two-year fix at 1.99 per cent. That looks great. But it was only around for seven days and for people with a whopping 40 per cent deposit. How many loans were actually approved on this deal? I suspect we shall never know.

And where are the deals for homeowners with smaller deposits?

In London and the South-East, there may be plenty of people building up equity. But in many parts of the country house prices are falling heavily every month — leaving people owning a little less of their homes each day.

It also means millions are being locked out of the best deals.

Banks always try to baffle us with numbers. And with mortgages the numbers always sound big.

RBS tried to justify its lacklustre performance by saying it had increased lending on mortgages by £136 million.

Actually this probably only represents around 900 loans — that’s less than 0.01 per cent of the housing market.

The banks may try to talk a good game but they simply don’t want to lend. And they certainly don’t want to do it cheaply.

So thank goodness for the building societies, who do at least appear as though they want to serve their customers well.

Bad old days

Our Get Britain Saving campaign has already delivered some great results — but it’s now time for the Financial Services Authority to get involved with pension regulation.

Every day that passes without proper oversight of retirement payouts, another retiree is deprived of the income they deserve.

As our story on page 45 about David Burnett shows, there is still a long way to go to ensure that insurers treat customers fairly.

Let’s be clear. His insurer Prudential has done nothing wrong in the way it rejected him for an enhanced income.

It tried to offer Mr Burnett — who takes high blood pressure medication and is a heavy smoker — an annuity for his condition.

Prudential knew Mr Burnett had a serious medical condition and could qualify for a better payout.

The insurer couldn’t give him this — but was under no obligation to tell him that rival firms could.

As a result, Mr Burnett must spend the remainder of his retirement on a poorer pension.

This is a gross dereliction of the duty of care that the Pru should show to its customers — particularly one who has saved with them for more than three decades. Mr Burnett trusted the company with his pension, and it failed him at the last.

Yet a new code of practice for insurers will allow this loophole to continue.

The FSA and The Pensions Regulator must protect retirees so they are not deprived of the information that would give them a bigger income.

Not another day can be allowed to pass with pensioners being left with second-class payouts.

Building debt

Every year the Government comes up with a new scheme to help first-time buyers.

Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been spent on such schemes — yet there is very little proof that they have any impact. If anything, they seem to give more assistance to property developers than would-be homeowners.

The First Buy scheme in particular falls into this category.

Buyers get a 20 per cent low-interest loan, split between the Government and the developer. This may allow them to get a cheaper mortgage, but it also leaves them owing much more. It’s hardly generous.

The taxpayer and the developer always get their money back, but the buyer is lumbered with 20 per cent more debt.

Now if developers knocked 10 per cent or 20 per cent off the price of their properties, that would be a scheme I could get excited about.